The Inexplicables (Clockwork Century)
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Authors: Cherie Priest
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For Angeline and her father
For Seattle
Acknowledgments
It feels strange knowing that
The Inexplicables
will probably be the last book I write in Seattle. I won’t say “absolutely the last” because one never knows, and it’s not like I’m planning to run away and never look back; but as you may or may not know, my husband and I bought a house in Tennessee … and by the time you read this, we will be living in Chattanooga (once again).
We lived in Seattle for six years, and in many ways, the city was very, very kind to me. It gave me
Boneshaker
, after all—as well as the subsequent books in the Clockwork Century series. None of these stories would’ve ever happened if I hadn’t come out West in 2006, so I will always be grateful for my time here.
Thank you, Seattle. You gave me more than I deserved, and I was not always gracious about it. I hope I’ve done you proud with these stories. They are a song of appreciation.
So. Yes.
When it comes to more specific thanks, I scarcely know where to begin. But this time, I’ll save the usual suspects for the end and start with the local crew.
Thanks of the highest order go to the bookstore folks: Duane Wilkins, plus Caitlin and Art, and everyone else at the University Book Store; Steve Winter and Vlad Verano at Third Place Books; and all the kind people at the Seattle Mystery Book Store, who have carried a torch for my Eden books (much to my continued delight).
Thanks of a matching caliber go to my wonderful friends of the writing and non-writing variety. To the Cap Hill Crew—Ellen Milne, Suezie Hagy, and Nova Barlow; to Jillian and Pete Venters—two lovely and loving grown-up Goths who I simply can’t recommend enough; Richelle Mead and Mark Henry for being cornerstones in my first actual group of Writer Buddies; and to Kat Richardson, another cornerstone—who has become one of my very dearest friends in the last couple of years. Also, I must note the amazing Mary Robinette Kowal, who, it must be mentioned with some small measure of irony, hails from Chattanooga. But I did not know her—or come to adore her—until we met on the West Coast.
Further thanks to the following folks for their outstanding support in a personal and professional nature, though they aren’t Northwest locals: George R. R. Martin, for teaching me more about writing in six months than a four-year B.A. and three years of grad school ever did; Sam Sykes, a damn fine convention pal and all-round great correspondent; John Scalzi, for good guesses and secret-keeping; William Schafer, for his persistent waving of pom-poms in my general direction, even though I’m a horrible person who hasn’t written that next novella for him yet; Mike Lee, for talking me off the ledge repeatedly re: THINGS THAT ARE SECRET and might be secret forever; Wil Wheaton, for his effervescent enthusiasm and unwavering positivity; Warren Ellis, a man I can’t help but idolize and constantly want to hug, so it’s just as well (for his sake) that he’s overseas; Jess Nevins, the kindest, most brilliant archivist in Texas and well beyond; and to everyone else in the clubhouse that serves the world—you people know who you are, and why I love you.
And now to the publishing team—the people who prop me up, urge me on, keep me moving, and make all the magic happen.
A million and one thanks to my editor, the inimitable Liz Gorinsky, who saves me every damn day; my amazing agent, Jennifer Jackson, because, dear God, I don’t know how I’d ever survive this business without her on my side; my publicist, Aisha Cloud, who sends me on the road and takes care of me while I’m there; Irene Gallo in the art department for all the beautiful covers; and everyone else at Tor who helps these books find their way into the world.
Lifesavers, each and every one of them.
And finally, thanks to my husband, Jaymes Aric Annear—who loves me enough to come home with me. I couldn’t do it without him.
Contents
So I became a dreamer, and acquired an indisposition to all bodily activity; and I was fretful and inordinately passionate, and as I could not play at anything, and was slothful, I was despised and hated by the boys.
—
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
,
in a letter to his friend Thomas Poole
One
Rector “Wreck’em” Sherman was delivered to the Sisters of Loving Grace Home for Orphans the week it opened, on February 9, 1864. His precise age was undetermined, but estimated at approximately two years. He was filthy, hungry, and shoeless, wearing nothing on his feet except a pair of wool socks someone, somewhere, had lovingly knitted for him before the city went to hell. Whether she had been mother or nursemaid, governess or grandmother, no one knew and no one ever learned; but the child’s vivid red hair, pearl white skin, and early suggestions of freckles implied rather strongly that he was no relation to the Duwamish woman who brought him to the shelter. She’d carried him there, along with another child who did not survive the month. Her own name was lost to history, or it was lost to incomplete records only sometimes kept in the wake of the Boneshaker catastrophe.
The little boy who lived, the one with hair the color of freshly cut carrots, was handed over to a nun with eyes too sad for someone so young and a habit too large for someone so small. The native woman who toted Rector told her only his name, and that “There is no one left to love him. I do not know this other boy, or what he is called. I found him in the bricks.”
For a long time, Rector did not talk.
He did not babble or gesture or make any sound at all, except to cry. When he did, it was a strange cry—all the nuns agreed, and nodded their accord sadly, as though something ought to be done about it—a soft, hooting sob like the desolate summons of a baby owl. And when the dark-haired boy who’d been his circumstantial companion passed away from Blight poisoning, or typhoid, or cholera, or whatever else ravaged the surviving population that week … Rector stopped crying as well.
He grew into a pallid, gangly thing, skinny like most of the refugees. At first, people in the Outskirts had bartered for what they could and took ships and airships out into the Sound to fish; but within six months, Blight-poisoned rainwater meant that little would grow near the abandoned city. And many of the children—the ones like Rector, lost and recovered—were stunted by the taint of what had happened. They were halted, slowed, or twisted by the very air they’d breathed when they were still young enough to be shaped by such things.
All in all, Rector’s teenage condition could’ve been worse.
He could’ve had legs of uneven lengths, or eyes without whites—only yellows. He might’ve become a young man without any hair, even eyebrows or lashes. He might’ve had far too many teeth, or none at all. His spine might have turned as his height overtook him, leaving him lame and coiled, walking with tremendous difficulty and sitting in pain.
But there was nothing wrong with him on the outside.
And therefore, able-bodied and quick-minded (if sometimes mean, and sometimes accused of petty criminal acts), he was expected to become a man and support himself. Either he could join the church and take up the ministry—which no one expected, or even, frankly, wanted—or he could trudge across the mud flats and take up a job in the new sawmill (if he was lucky) or at the waterworks plant (if he was not). Regardless, time had run out on Rector Sherman, specific age unknown, but certainly—by now—at least eighteen years.
And that meant he had to go.
Today.
Sometime after midnight and long before breakfast—the time at which he would be required to vacate the premises—Rector awoke as he usually did: confused and cold, and with an aching head, and absolutely everything hurting.
Everything often hurt, so he had taken to soothing the pain with the aid of sap, which would bring on another pain and call for a stronger dose. And when it had all cycled through him, when his blood was thick and sluggish, when there was nothing else to stimulate or sedate or propel him through his nightmares … he woke up. And he wanted more.
It was all he could think about, usurping even the astonishing fact that he had no idea where he was going to sleep the next night, or how he was going to feed himself after breakfast.
He lay still for a full minute, listening to his heart surge, bang, slam, and settle.
This loop, this perpetual rolling hiccup of discomfort, was an old friend. His hours stuttered. They stammered, repeated themselves, and left him at the same place as always, back at the beginning. Reaching for more, even when there wasn’t any.
Downstairs in the common room the great grandfather clock chimed two—so that was one mystery solved without lifting his head off the pillow. A minor victory, but one worth counting. It was two o’clock in the morning, so he had five hours left before the nuns would feed him and send him on his way.
Rector’s thoughts moved as if they struggled through glue, but they gradually churned at a more ordinary pace as his body reluctantly pulled itself together. He listened over the thudding, dull bang of his heart and detected two sets of snores, one slumbering mumble, and the low, steady breaths of a deep, silent sleeper.
Five boys to a room. He was the oldest.
And he was the last one present who’d been orphaned by the Blight. Everyone else from that poisoned generation had grown up and moved on to something else by now—everyone but Rector, who had done his noble best to refuse adulthood or die before meeting it, whichever was easier.